New official figures…show that three quarters of claimants on incapacity benefit are perfectly capable of holding down jobs. no less than £11billion a year is now drained from the public purse by almost two million spongers who are faking their illnesses or disabilities so that they do not have to look for work….
All rigour has evaporated from the system; all morality has disappeared as the state now doles out incapacity benefits to more than 2.6 million people, of whom perhaps 600,000 are genuine claimants. One of the remarkable achievements of modern British social security is to have created more apparently disabled people in this country than the blood-stained carnage of the First World War….
That truth was symbolised recently by the case of Fred Bowers, the 73-year-old who appeared in the last series of Britain's Got Talent. Despite claiming £70-a-week in disability benefit, he was able to launch into a demanding dance routine which might have sapped the energy of someone half his age….
Columnist Leo McKinstry quotes former Prime Minister Lord Rosebery, who in 1908, said: "The state invites us every day to lean upon it. I seem to hear the wheedling and alluring whisper, 'Sound you may be. We bid you to be a cripple."
